N’DJAMENA, April 13: Chad on Thursday claimed it had repulsed rebels from the capital seeking to oust President Idriss Deby Itno and blamed neighbouring Sudan for fomenting a coup attempt.
“The rebel columns have been completely destroyed.... The situation is completely under control,” Mr Itno told Radio France Internationale (RFI) on Thursday morning.
“Government forces did their duty against mercenaries controlled remotely by Khartoum,” Mahamat Ali Abdallah, Chad’s minister for territorial administration, told a news conference later. And Chadian Foreign Minister Ahmat Allami, speaking in Cairo, accused Khartoum of supporting the rebellion in an act of ‘premeditated aggression’ against Chad.
Intense fighting on the outskirts of N’Djamena broke out at dawn on Thursday as rebels of the United Front for Change (FUC) advanced on the capital, a number of them entering the city, military sources said.
But the light gunfire and explosions that rang throughout the morning were silenced by midafternoon.
An FUC leader earlier alleged French fighter planes, part of a 1,200-man contingent in the former French colony, had bombed rebel-held towns in eastern Chad, causing civilian casualties.
France, which says its contingent is tasked with helping Chad with reconnaissance missions, denied the charge.
The FUC has stepped up its attacks throughout central and eastern Chad in recent days, and on Wednesday claimed it controlled 80 per cent of the oil-rich, impoverished state.
Western and UN powers have voiced grave concern at the developments in the nation, which borders the strife-torn Darfur region of western Sudan and plays host to hundreds of thousands of refugees from that civil war.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday said it was up to African countries to resolve the situation.
“As I have said, let the problems of Africa be handled first by Africans and let our friends and partners give their support in solving these problems,” he told journalists during a trip to Switzerland.
The defence ministry in Paris said that a French Mirage jet had fired warning shots near a rebel column advancing on the capital N’Djamena from the east on Wednesday morning.
Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau described the shots as a “political signal, with the framework of the security of our nationals” in Chad. French forces “are not involved in military actions” in Chad, he said.
Paris echoed other international voices in warning the deteriorating security situation in the arid north African nation was “very worrying”.
Aides to French President Jacques Chirac said he had advised Deby to ask the UN Security Council to assert “opposition to the use of force”, in a reference to Sudan. Paris advised the estimated 1,500 French civilians present in the country to exercise “caution”, but issued no order to evacuate, the foreign ministry said.—AFP
